Marijuana is on the ballot in four states, but legalization may soon stall, researchers say

The midterm elections could loosen marijuana restrictions in the United States, as four states put ballot initiatives on legalization to a vote.

Voters in Utah and Missouri will choose whether patients should gain access to medical marijuana.

In Michigan and North Dakota, where medical marijuana is already legal, residents will decide whether to allow it for recreational use. If so, they would join nine U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Canada and Uruguay in launching a regulated recreational marijuana market.

Our research indicates that medical marijuana progress may well stall after this latest round of ballot initiatives. Recreational marijuana may continue to expand into states with legal medical marijuana but will ultimately hit a wall, too.

The reason for our caution has to do with the particular way marijuana legalization has occurred in the United States: at the ballot box.

Ballot initiatives have power

So far, every recreational marijuana law passed has occurred via ballot initiative, not through the state legislative process. Seven of the first eight medical marijuana laws – those in California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Maine and Nevada – were also adopted via ballot initiative.

Such direct initiatives – where citizens can put a policy on the ballot for approval – are a powerful, if nontraditional, form of policymaking in the United States.

Something similar may happen in Utah this fall. Gov. Gary Herbert opposes the expansive medical marijuana ballot initiative up for vote in his state but would support a more restrictive medical marijuana program.

The limits of direct initiative

So the ballot initiative is powerful. But our analysis suggests its potential for liberalizing marijuana access in the U.S. is nearly tapped out.

Of the 19 U.S. states that have no form of legal marijuana, only six – Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Utah and Missouri – allow for direct initiatives.

The remaining 13 states without legal marijuana are mostly conservative places like South Carolina and Alabama, where legislatures have indicatedreluctance to loosen restrictions. If voters there wanted medical or recreational marijuana, they would not have the option of bypassing policymakers to get the issue on the ballot.

Marijuana legalization won’t end with the 2018 midterms. There is still room for recreational marijuana to expand into the 22 states that currently have legal medicinal marijuana.

History shows that once people grow comfortable with medical marijuana – seeing its impacts on patients and tax revenues – full legalization often follows.

California fully legalized marijuana in 2016, 20 years after legalizing medical marijuana, following a national trend.AP Photo/Richard Vogel

In our analysis, the remaining 13 states are very unlikely to liberalize access to marijuana without a significant push by the federal government.

That’s unlikely, but not impossible, under the Trump administration.

Federal law still considers marijuana an illegal Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that, as far as the U.S. government is concerned, the plant has no medical value.